Ruston, Louisiana.
Typical home $229,546 (+2.3% in a year), asking rent $1,198 (+7.1%). Ruston, LA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$508 (+73%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $5,098 +2%
- $224,448$229,546 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $22,051 +11%
- $207,495$229,546 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Ruston$1,205
- Louisiana$1,123
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 34 years.
Typical home values in Ruston, LA rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Ruston, LA rose 7.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Ruston runs $341/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $506 in May 2024.
That is $1,539 a month against $1,198 rent: a $1,205 mortgage payment, plus $88 property tax and $246 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Ruston
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$1,539
- Renting$1,198
- Mortgage only$1,205
Property tax · $88/mo 0.46% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lincoln Parish, LA
Insurance & upkeep · $246/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Ruston, Lincoln Parish, Louisiana
Ruston is a city of 22,166 people in Lincoln Parish. Half its households earn more than $31,120 a year and half less, against $39,172 across Lincoln Parish; 40% of its people live below the poverty line. 36% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 64% are rented. Unemployment in Lincoln Parish was 4.1% in August 2026, and the county had 2.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Ruston is a city in Lincoln Parish with a very young population, well below the age of most American towns, which fits a place built around a university. Incomes run below the parish's, poverty is common, and far more households rent than own their homes. Winters are mild and rarely bring snow, summers are hot, and the year is a wet one.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Ruston are Lincoln Parish Schools, Walmart and North Louisiana Medical Center. Commutes are short, and jobs across the parish have grown over the past year.
Things to do. In or beside town, the Dixie Center for the Arts is a theatre, and the Louisiana Tech University Arboretum is a botanical garden. Joe Aillet Stadium, also in or beside town, is the place for a game day. A longer drive away, Lake D'Arbonne State Park offers a protected area on a reservoir for time on the water.
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- 8,796households
- 40%of adults have a degree
- 40%below the poverty line
- 15 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lincoln Parish had 19,084 jobs in 2025, 2.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 57° and lows near 35°; warmest in August, with highs near 93° and lows near 71°. About 56 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ruston La Tech weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ruston
- Lincoln Parish SchoolsSchool district791FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters385
- North Louisiana Medical CenterGeneral hospital259FTE
- Brookshire Grocery CompanySupermarkets and other grocery retailers185
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter129
- PMG OPCO - AlpineSkilled nursing facilities119
- WalmartSupermarkets and other grocery stores104
- Lifecare Specialty Hospital of NLong-term care hospital87FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,385 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Ice stormsVery high
- Strong windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Ruston’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Lincoln Parish and the Ruston, LA metro.
Ruston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ruston$229,546
- Louisiana$213,867
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Ruston listings, and the typical home goes pending in 37 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Ruston21.20%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Ruston86
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Ruston18
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Ruston$264,753
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Ruston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ruston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.